Office of Partnerships and Innovation

About Us

Founded in 1841, Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario is one of Canada’s leading research-intensive institutions, combining quality and intensity in research with excellence in undergraduate and graduate education. Research is a core component of the mission of Queen’s University. A member of the U15, a group of Canada’s leading research-intensive universities, Queen’s ranks highly in terms of research funding and research intensity amongst universities nationally.

In May 2017, Queen’s University consolidated technology transfer, industry partnerships, research contracts, Innovation Park, and regional innovation ecosystem activities to form the Office of Partnerships and Innovation. Read about this new approach to technology transfer and the appointment of the Assistant Vice-Principal (Partnerships & Innovation) in the Queen’s Gazette.

Queen’s has demonstrated a long history of championing research excellence, research collaborations, knowledge translation, knowledge mobilization, and/or technology transfer in support of faculty and students, community, and partners, and with benefits to Canada and the world.

In supporting faculty and graduate student innovations, Queen’s has a proven record in translating research for the benefit of the public. In 1987, the university founded PARTEQ Innovations, a not-for-profit organization, to provide Queen’s researchers with the commercial and intellectual property expertise required to advance their discoveries to benefit the public. PARTEQ supported the founding of over 45 startups, transformed more than 1,200 invention disclosures into over 200 technologies, each covered by at least one patent, and returned more than $40M to Queen’s, partner institutions, and inventors.

In support of community innovation and regional economic development, Queen’s launched Innovation Park in 2008 to encourage interaction among the participants in the research and innovation ecosystem and to foster commercialization and entrepreneurial activity in Kingston and region. The Park is a community of innovators and specialists where the university, industry, startups, entrepreneurs, governments, and not-for-profits work together to cultivate ideas, identify and transform technological discoveries, and propel innovations into the marketplace.

In support of knowledge mobilization and sponsored research, Queen’s established the outward-facing Industry Partnerships team in 2009 to help build successful R&D collaborations between industry (MNEs, SMEs, and entrepreneurs), professors and students, and public sector agencies. This team advances regional, national, and international collaborations, and works closely with federal, provincial, and not-for-profit funding agencies to accelerate such collaborations. The majority of these relationships enable knowledge mobilization and translation via the engagement of faculty and training of students, and provide opportunities for students to gain experience working with industry to solve problems via academic projects, research projects, and internships. On an annual basis, Queen’s attracts more than $40M in funding for research from industry, including support for clinical trials, and programs that require industry partners.